Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Find out answers to some of the travel clinic services most commonly asked questions.
It is best to book your appointment well in advance of travel. Some vaccinations take over a month, and underlying medical conditions may require complex decisions. We recommend seeing a travel health advisor at least 6 weeks before departure but will try to accommodate last-minute requests. Appointments can usually be booked within two weeks of referral, depending on availability.
Before attending your appointment, please ensure that you have completed all the required MyCare questionnaires. This can help your appointment run as smoothly as possible.
To provide you with tailored advice, please bring your immunisation records. If you have any medical conditions or are on medications, bring a copy of your latest letter from your specialist and a list of your medication.
During your appointment, our clinicians will review your travel itinerary, discuss health risks, recommend vaccinations, and advise on preventing non-vaccine risks such as malaria, blood clots, and traveller’s diarrhoea to ensure a safe trip.
After the appointment, you will receive a summary letter and detailed travel health leaflets with useful resource links. If you need vaccinations that require more than one dose, a nurse will schedule them for you.
Our clinicians provide specialised travel health advice. They will recommend vaccinations based on safety, appropriateness and timing of vaccinations according to your itinerary and your medical history. You can choose to receive your vaccines on the same day or schedule them for another day.
Our travel consultation provides a bespoke travel advice and risk assessment with tailored vaccine recommendations to the unique traveller. A ‘vaccines only’ appointment will be scheduled as a follow-up from the first general consultation. Vaccines can be given on the same day or on a different day, according to your personal preference and appointments’ availability. If we are not able to schedule an appointment in the required timeframe, we will offer a list of alternative vaccine clinics.
First appointments with a clinician last usually 45 minutes. They may be longer if you have particular medical conditions or complex travel itineraries. Follow-up appointments are usually 15-30 minutes long.
We welcome families to our clinic and you may attend together. Each member will have a 30 minutes consultation for travel health advice. Please complete all necessary pre-appointment questionnaires and vaccine records on MyCare for all family members. Initial consultations can be done over the phone, with in-person visits for vaccinations and anti-malarias as needed. Please note family discounts are not available, and charges apply for each private consultation.
For follow-up vaccines or advice, please contact our admin team at uclh.
The risks associated with COVID-19 have changed since the beginning of the pandemic. Whilst you may still become unwell, the chances of needing to be hospitalised or having life threatening complications have significantly reduced with vaccination. We would strongly encourage you to complete the recommended vaccine schedule as per national guidance.
The quality of healthcare varies enormously from country to country and more vulnerable travellers may not have access to the specific treatments for COVID-19 that are available in the UK. There may be higher demands on intensive care facilities which may have implications for your care should you need hospitalisation.
We recommend checking the following online resources regularly up to the day you plan to travel and during travel:
- https://
www. travelhealthpro.org.uk/ disease/ 221/ covid-19 - https://
www. gov.uk/ foreign-travel-advice - https://
www. gov.uk/ government/ organisations/ public-health-england - www.
who.int/ , this resource gives you an idea of how the quality of healthcare is ranked in countries all over the worldhealthinfo/ paper30.pdf
If you are unable to have a vaccine, we will assess your risk of infection and discuss whether, without having that vaccine, we consider the risk to be too high for you to pursue your travel plans at this time.
Some of the factors that we will take into consideration are; current outbreaks at your planned destination, health reasons such as being too immunosuppressed to have certain vaccines, severe allergies to the vaccine or components of the vaccine or lack of time to complete the course or safety tests before you fly.
We can provide “a proof of vaccination certificate” or “an exemption certificates” as required, to show to border officials as you enter a country.
The options available to you will be fully discussed at your consultation.
The clinic keeps a record of any immunisations or medicines you received each time you visited us. If you need a copy of this information, please contact our clinic by email: at uclh.
Most yellow fever vaccination certificates are now valid for life, including certificates that were issued prior to 2016 which were only valid for 10 years at that time. You should not make any changes to these certificates, and you do not need for them to be re-issued.
If you have lost your certificate or changed your name and you need a replacement certificate for a yellow fever vaccination that was given in our clinic, we can re-issue it and post it to you. There is a fee charged for this.
If your vaccination was given at another clinic, they should be able to re-issue a certificate if they are still operating as a yellow fever centre. If they are no longer a yellow fever centre, they may be able to provide you with the relevant details for us or another clinic to issue you with a duplicate certificate. We must have sufficient information to complete the certificate in full, including the date the vaccine was given, and the manufacturer and batch number of the vaccine and to be confident that you are adequately protected against yellow fever.
While photocopies may not be accepted for travel it is a good idea to keep a copy in a safe place, so you have the details in case you need it re-issued.
Most immunisation schedules consist of two or more doses of vaccines given over a period of several weeks. If you do not have enough time to complete a standard course of vaccines, we may be able to offer you an accelerated course. For some schedules this means you will need to have an extra dose of vaccine around a year later, but it does give you peace of mind of knowing you can be protected earlier.
In the event you only have time to have one dose of a course of vaccines, it may still be worth having that dose. The staff at the clinic will be able to advise you further. While it normally takes around two weeks for a vaccine to become effective, sometimes the incubation period (the time between being infected and having symptoms) is prolonged and this gives the vaccine time to work and reduce the severity of symptoms.
If you take regular medication, you should check if you are allowed to take this into the country you are visiting. This applies to medicines you buy over the counter as well as prescribed medication. If you are taking “controlled drugs” for example morphine, diazepam, ritalin and temazepam among others you may be required to obtain an export license to transport them into or out of the UK.
For further information on restrictions and any permissions you need to carry medicines you can contact the embassy or high commission of the country you are visiting. You should also check the country advice provided by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the factsheet on medicines and travel provided by the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC).
You should carry a letter from your GP or prescriber detailing all the medicines you are taking.
